Comments on: Objective vs Subjective Moralityhttp://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/objective-vs-subjective-morality/
Your Daily Fix of Neuroscience, Skepticism, and Critical ThinkingFri, 09 Dec 2016 13:00:59 +0000hourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.1By: karenkilbanehttp://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/objective-vs-subjective-morality/#comment-101318
Sat, 29 Aug 2015 22:54:37 +0000http://theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=5181#comment-101318Excellent points. It seems crucial to equal rights for all that we take these ideas and figure out how to apply them in real life situations. Morality is contextual, always. For example, in wartime on the battlefront, the sniper with the most kills is revered and honored. In civilian life, a sniper will be imprisoned and reviled for just one kill. Different contexts call for different behaviors.

If we can recognize that morality is based upon the context and consensus, it becomes transparent that the rules of morality in any given context are decided on by people and not some divine source or universal Truth. When we understand rules are contextual, changeable, and derived by consensus, we can also make people accountable within the process.

In the schools, we pay principals to create school rules, usually by consensus with his staff and parents. We pay the principal to administer those rules and deal with students who break them. If the principal indicates to his students and staff he is lording over his students with The Truth and whatever he says goes because he has The Truth on his side and a special kind of Truth wielding authority, that principal will have unlimited power. He can take advantage of the students and teachers and get away with it. If the principal is simply administering the latest iteration of school rules derived by a consensus of parents and educators and that process is fully transparent, changes can be made to the rules as needed. Students who feel they have been dealt with unfairly can contest a rule. The rules may or may not change, but students can at least have a voice and be heard.

I was raised catholic and taught in a catholic school for a while. The parish priest connected to the school has total control of the school, hook, line, and sinker. There is no authority higher than the priest, literally, except for God, and the priest interprets the word of God, so really God has no more authority than he does. The priest can choose to listen to complaints or requests for changes, or not. The priest can make changes to rules after listening, or not. He can listen to parent/staff PTO groups or not. He is the representative of God in his parish and his school and therefore has the final say over everything. When you have a great priest, this system can work. When you have a sexually frustrated priest, like many are, you have a school full of vulnerable children. This has been hideously proven in every state in our country. The catholic schools are a microcosm of the kinds of abuse of power that can happen when a single person has the moral authority to interpret truth, express the truth, apply the truth, and evaluate who is measuring up or not measuring up to the truth.

I agree with most of what you have written. I think trying to obtain “absolute” knowledge of morality is extremely tricky. However, I must disagree with you on your assertion that it is literally impossible for there to be an objective morality. I think there are possible worlds that can be imagined in which an absolute morality could exist. Now, that is not to say that such a possible world is probably, but it is at least possible.

I do not think any more coherent points can be made unless morality is defined.

I would define morality as: a code of behavior about what you are supposed to do.

Now, in order for my definition of morality to exist, then there has to be some sort of teleological end to the world. This would be a universe with an end in mind. Further, this universe must contain beings with enough agency to qualify as “moral agents.” One could easily imagine a designed universe, with an end in mind, that does not contain creatures capable of moral agency. This could be something like a clockwork universe, where every event was planned by some designer before its inception.

So, this universe must have:

a: An end in mind.

and

b: Moral agents.

I think at least these two basic things are necessary for a universe such as I propose to exist.

These moral agents do not have to be totally free, but they must be free enough to either freely perform an action, or refrain from performing that action They may be motivated in certain direction, and thus not be totally free, but they must have at least this.

Now, beings in this universe may very well have certain duties and obligations that they are called upon to perform. They also might have certain taboos of behavior that they should avoid.

Perhaps the designer of this universe wants to create free beings that may possibly reject the end-goal of his design. Perhaps the designer of this universe thinks that beings who are cooperating freely with his master plan is a preferable scenario to having automatons that merely do his will.

I think such a universe is logically possible.

PROBLEMS:

You mentioned the Euthyphro dilemma. I think that this is indeed an interesting problem. But I do not think it provides logical proof for the impossibility of a world where objective morality might exist. I think this dilemma only provides a thought experiment on what exactly is the nature and origin of morality.

Perhaps morality is just brute a fact about the universe. Leibniz once asked “why is there something instead of nothing?” Even if you say “God made everything” that leads to the question “why does God exist?” You might respond that God is a necessary being. But even if things are necessary, either the universe itself, or God, that still does not answer “why is there something instead of nothing?”

Perhaps non-existence is not possible. But whatever necessarily exists just exists. It has no reason for it’s existence, other than “it cannot be other.”

Perhaps morality is like that. If God is necessary, and cannot not exist, perhaps whatever his nature is, is the grounding for moral actions. If God exists, and he has a certain type of nature, his nature would inform the types of restrictions or duties he places on free beings he might create.

You might point out that rejecting such a being’s ideas of what should and should not be done is possible. If you were a creature designed by this being, you might even justify why you would reject his moral prescriptions. However, at least according to my earlier definition of morality, you would not invalidate the objectiveness of morality by doing so. You would not have the power to alter the teleology of the world you found yourself in, and thus could not affect what you were “supposed to do” according to the plan of that world.

Now, the world I have envisioned is certainly possible, even if it highly contrived and improbable. So, at least, objective morality is possible.

We may not be able to explain, as you correctly illustrated in the Euthyphro, what exactly is the nature and origin of this morality. ( I think we can try as I illustrated above)

But I think such questions as “why does anything exist at all instead of nothing?” are just as vexing, and still yet unsolved.

Ask yourself: Why is there matter? Why does the law of gravity have the force it does instead of a stronger force? These are just brute facts. Who knows? Maybe they are just necessary and cannot be other. But why is that?

Anyway, I love your work. You have saved me money, as I no longer waste my money on pseudo scientific medicine. A man who saves another man money is called his friend. Keep crusading for truth.

Zach says: “Well, I am not trying to be stubborn headed, I am convinced on what I am convinced on and so are you. We are in the process of dialog and trying to convince each other of our own views. If this isn’t your thing you don’t have to jump in, but I for one REALLY enjoy it. If it wasn’t for my skeptic/agnostic friend, I would not have the interest in these conversations I do today. Iron sharpness iron and all that sort of thing. So I enjoy these conversations – they can get a bit heated, but it’s a discipline to not confuse disagreement with stupidity and get frustrated over the fact that someone doesn’t agree with you. If someone doesn’t at least understand my point of view I strive to not get frustrated with them, but work at being a better communicator. Now if someone understands my view and disagrees, well that is what it is and is still usually profitable conversation.
The best conversations are ones that are actual conversations – as opposed to games of “Gotcha”, which usually is what internet conversations turn into – hence why I am trying to shy away from commentators here who simply just want to argue and not have a friendly conversation.”
You filthy,intellectually dishonest , Gish galloping, nit picking , horrible hypocrite ( that was an intentional ad hominem , I hate your guts)
You want no part in proper discussions,all you care about is games of GOTCHA.
All you do is nit pick people’s arguments
For statements you can use your circular,irrational , broken logic on.
And then Gish gallop like a jockey chased by wolves.
You sir are a yellow belly and I hope you burn in the hell you believe in because my hell is to nice for you

]]>By: keithhttp://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/objective-vs-subjective-morality/#comment-49367
Sat, 26 Jan 2013 17:11:15 +0000http://theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=5181#comment-49367Thanks for that post, Doc. It is refreshing when this subject is approached with reason and logic (as well as respect and constraint) from a man of science. Having recently read Harris’ book on value creation, I’ve had enough of scientific over-reach into the area of ethics. Of course its not that science has no place in the discussion, but that ultimately logic and reason are needed to sort everything out, frame the discussion, evaluate the arguments (and evaluate the science).

“Because we are talking about values, a moral principle can never be a completely empirical fact, and therefore cannot be completely determined by scientific investigation.”

I’m inclined to believe that science, in principal, should be able to cover everything within a naturalistic worldview. I steal a bit from Gregory Dawes here, but that definition includes not only tangible physical entities, but also existential or causal phenomenon that somehow supervenes upon or are realized by physical things (and is therefore subject to empirical investigation through their observable effects). Love, hate, confidence, locus of control and morality should then be well within the purview of naturalistic explanations.

We have plenty of research that examine phenomenon similar to phenomenon mentioned above. True, these are latent and not observable variables, but I don’t think that hurts their validity. I’d even argue that the tendency for distinct societies to repeat certain moral codes is indicative of objective morality (Michael Shermer has this list in one of his books). I think ultimately morals are useful heuristics, that is context-dependent but nonetheless objective and much like Sam Harris, agree it’s useful for science to throw itself in the ring to find it.

]]>By: nybgrushttp://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/objective-vs-subjective-morality/#comment-49318
Fri, 25 Jan 2013 05:36:52 +0000http://theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=5181#comment-49318I’m always fascinated by the minds that can do that. Because I know that at least the majority of them are genuine. I simply can’t imagine thinking that way. So it makes me wonder what it is like to be in their shoes and not be able to imagine thinking the way that I do.

Because on some level they actually are just as right as we are. They are not deceiving themselves or attempting to deceive us. This is how they genuinely think and the same way I cannot fathom how to “just believe” something genuinely, I must assume that they cannot fathom how to not use “something else” to “know” things that reflect reality.

It’s back to that Sam Harris quote – what evidence to you show someone to convince them, if they don’t value evidence? What logic can you use with someone who doesn’t value (or in this case understand) logic?

So by the same token, to play a bit of devil’s advocate, since it is we who assert that free will is an illusion and that there is no extrinsic immutable and objective standard by which to measure ourselves is it actually appropriate to consider them – any of them – “crazy”?

We can certainly say they do not conform as well to repeatable reality as we do. And it is Feynman who said “that which I cannot repeat, I cannot understand” after all. It is very feasible that we are repeatable but not accurate. However, since we are consistently inaccurate, we are at a relative peak. I would argue our peak (and take that to mean the general peak of “humanity” however you may want to reasonable and charitably define it) is higher (better) than theirs. But I cannot say ours is the highest possible. We just don’t know.

BTW – I do tend believe we live in a purely deterministic universe, which includes our so-called “free will.” However, this is still a probabalistic universe with an intrinsic level of uncertainty by definition. And compilex enough that, just like evolution makes a bird’s wing look intelligently designed, we are living in a universe such that the probability functions of complex systems rapidly extend towards infinity and thus we have a very solid illusion of free will. I further believe that this illusion is not only entirely sufficient but truly no better option exists than such a reality. And if I am wrong, it is probably by a mostly negligible amount of error which will eventually, hopefully, lay within the intrinsic uncertainty of the fabric of the cosmos.

LOL. I don’t have clinic tomorrow and but I probably shouldn’t stay up late with a vodka soda and wax poetic any longer.

]]>By: rezistnzisfutlhttp://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/objective-vs-subjective-morality/#comment-49316
Fri, 25 Jan 2013 04:18:40 +0000http://theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=5181#comment-49316I can only imagine the magnitude of certain decisions doctors must make when peoples’ health and even their lives are affected by risky, or not so clear, decisions, especially if that decision ultimately ended in failure, and you have to live with that failure. It’s just reality, and a kind of reality many people don’t want to face and a big reason, I think, that many people turn to a “higher power” that has some sort of plan or purpose, rather than senseless chaos.

Kalam is just one example that illustrates the thinking of apologists like WLC, and pseudo-apologists like Zach who ape him. Though the thrust of our discussion here hasn’t been Kalam, the basic structure is the same – an apologist making assertions that go against what has been observed in reality that they have no direct evidence for, so they search for evidence that’s not there and ending up “forcing” evidence, like pounding a square peg into a round hole. That’s why nearly all of their arguments are laced with logical fallacies, factual inaccuracies, and outright dishonesty.

What’s worse is when they use their unsubstantiated and unfalsifiable claims as proof of their god’s existence.

At the end, if any of them ever attempt to be intellectually honest, the only recourse they have is to admit that it’s all a matter of faith and it’s something they cannot outwardly demonstrate. I wish more theists could admit that, because though I think that belief is crazy, at least I can respect their honesty, which is always a nice change of pace.

NSC is great, his videos really cut through the rhetoric.

]]>By: nybgrushttp://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/objective-vs-subjective-morality/#comment-49315
Fri, 25 Jan 2013 04:02:58 +0000http://theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=5181#comment-49315Indeed. Kalam has been so well refuted it boggles the mind that it is even tried. During my same art project I came across a 2 year old video by Non-Stamp Collector where he essentially demonstrates that after precluding all the fallacies, straw men, and disproven arguments from both sides, there is no debate left and the Christians have lost. But we all knew that, of course.

I do agree though – a universe without purpose and in which we are ultimately responsible for each and every of our actions is kind of scary. I liken it to the notion of thinking that one day I will be an attending and final decisions of vital import in someone’s life will literally rest in my hands. I have no one else to turn to and slag off my responsibility.

So I can cower in fear and be a $hitty doctor or I can accept the reality and do what it takes to be worthy of and do well by my responsibility.

I think you hit the nail on the head there. Similar to how conspiracy theorists create comfortable fictions out of anomaly hunting and question begging in order to feel less threatened by a chaotic, messy, and oftentimes violent world, it’s similar with many theists. It’s comforting to have some sort of filial relationship to defer to when bad things happen or inexplicable tragedies occur like Sandy Hook. It removes a burden of having to try to make things better or to consider the actual ramifications of belief, though I see some theists put a LOT of effort in trying to force others to conform to their religious belief, thinking that their way is the only right way.

I recently watched an interesting videoby TheoreticalBulls*** called William Lane Craig Is Not Doing Himself Any Favors regarding Kalam’s CAG where TB’s final observation dealt with a long-winded quote from WLC where Craig essentially threw up his hands and admits that the given philosophical definitions don’t accommodate his concept of a God caused universe and they should be revised. Talk about placing the cart before the horse – a vivid example of how apologists search for evidence for their preconceived notion, basically the antithesis of science where conclusions are based on the evidence. All it boils down to is one big argument from ignorance and begging the question, and that’s why they never even try to directly demonstrate their claims.